Career advice after 1st year at MBB (Part 1)

Hey guys,

I wanted to share some learnings that I had in my first year in MBB consulting in Europe - I would assume that at least some points are also highly relevant to people starting out in IB or other industries as well.

Keep in mind that all of these points are very individual perspectives - they are not necessarily true for each and everyone and there may be differences between firms and especially between the US and Europe.

During writing I have realised I have more points than I would want to put in one single post - therefore, this will become a series (unless everyone believes this is stupid / unhelpful or that nobody needs to be told these basic principles).

Nonetheless, here comes part 1 with five points - next five points would follow in part 2:

You don’t have to understand it right away - but put in all you have!

Nobody expects you as a fresh graduate to understand project work and your tasks right away. Especially if there are several modules, it is difficult to keep track of everything that is happening on the project. If a new issue arises during the day, it is completely fine to ask the project manager questions and to not know the right approach right away on your own. What is expected or at least highly appreciated, however, is that you put in some of your „free-time“ after you have finished your to-dos or on your weekend to try to get a good understanding of the overall project and to reflect on what you could do better / what your own module needs. If you do that you can at least ask the right questions and do not seem lost. The earlier you are in your career, the more hours you might need to put in for that but it is worth it.

Making some mistakes are acceptable but you should prevent big negative impacts

Everyone makes mistakes! You do not have to feel bad if you have made one… BUT: They should not happen often and if they happen you should communicate them quickly and honestly to your project manager. Best case would be if you can determine how large the impact of your mistake is. If your Excel model is wrong by $0.3m nobody cares (normally, at least that is what I did on my first project) - if it is by $50m, you need to revise the model and your whole team might lose the client‘s trust (which is basically what your ability to sell projects depends on). As a general rule of thumb, triple-check everything before you send it to someone. In my case, the impact was so minor that we did not even tell the client and my project manager talked about his own mistakes on his first project. If that happens more often on the project, though, your project manager loses trust in your ability or worse your willingness to do the job right.

The more (& precisely) you communicate and iterate the better

You should communicate a lot with your project manager (senior manager) - the the fresher you are on the job and the less well the project manager knows and therefore trusts you the more so.

This also applies for the number of iterations that you have. This depends on your project manager, of course, but in general I would recommend putting the least amount of work into something before you iterate it with them - everything that they kill or change during the iteration would otherwise be lost work and will cost you time (meaning you will pull longer nights). The crucial point here is always to make clear that it is „a first, preliminary draft to check the logic“. Of course your can phrase it differently but you want to make that clear, otherwise some people may get angry why you show them such unfinished work or doubt the quality of your work. But honestly, nothing is worse than working on something for a whole day to have it killed at 10pm with the task to redo it by EoD. Better to have iterations at 1pm, 4pm and 7pm to make sure you are on the right path (especially at the beginning of the project / your career).

Position yourself for the vital module

Every project has modules that are the core of what your team is doing. This is what the CEO really wants to see and discuss - no matter which level you are, you want to be part of or in the best case own these modules. This will lead to your project manager / partner working closely with you. You will become an expert over time in the topics that are important to all stakeholders and they will ask for your opinion. If you are not on one of these modules for a long time, that means that the project manager does not trust you enough. You should take the hint and change your environment within your firm to make a new impression to someone who will trust you with these modules.
Sometimes, you might even want to not be on this core module since you will probably work more on this than on the supporting, less important modules. This can be fine from time to time - but in the long run this approach will not only kill your amount of work but also your career.

Don‘t trust other people too much - it is still a competitive environment

This might sound awful but I and many of my cohort have had the same realisation. Stuff that you tell people in confidence can and will potentially be used against you. I know of people who have trusted their career mentor with them feeling somewhat lost on their current project. This led them to be put in the bottom-bucket even thought they did good work in general. Someone else asked the responsible person in staffing if she could be put on a project in a different industry because she had worked in the same industry for 10 months and wanted to explore other areas (which is normal in the first two years in consulting). The staffing person said in the next career board meeting that she is stubborn and not willing to work for the company for anything else than her preferences. It took a partner who knew her to intervene before the staffing person destroyed her whole career outlook. In general, it is a competitive industry with an „up-or-out“ principle. People will talk shit about you if that helps them in their own career. Of course, you can have trusted colleagues and friends but try to not be naive and if something can be dangerous for you, better tell a lie from time to time than being honest all the time.

These were the first five points - I have many more…

Maybe these are basics known to everyone - but since I am writing them down anyway I will probably keep posting them here.

Have a great day!